What I Learned About Leadership From Deadliest Warrior?

I think there are lots of interesting things you can learn from TV, it’s not necessary a vast wasteland. Deadliest Warrior is a series on SPIKE TV. Each week they pit a famous warriors from different time periods against each other. One of my favorite espisodes is still Jesse James vs. Al Capone.

What I learned about leadership comes from the ancient world (pre gunpowder). Each of the warriors from the ancient world were not only considered great warriors by great leaders. Each led thousands of warriors and even entire countries by their measures to greatness. These are individuals such as Hannabal, Alexander the Great , William Wallace, Sun Tzu, and Attila the Hun. What they have in common is that they all led from the front. They were follow me type leaders and were not afraid to be in the heat of the battle. They were all also trained since childhood to be great warriors, they were not average but instead top performers. Hannabal was said to have been the top swordsman and horseman in his army.

So how does this match up with a modern day view of leadership? Does the top performer, leading from the front still work?

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This blog is focused on anything related to learning faster. From time to time, I'll be posting about my book Learning Paths: Increase profits by reducing the time it takes to get up-to-speed (Pfeiffer 2004).
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